Sims 2 Review!!
The Sims franchise has definitely come a long way from the beginning of its initial break into the simulation game market, but The Sims 2, its latest installment for the pc, has to be its most innovative and impressive leap forward in virtually every aspect of the game, even when compared to its highly revered and bestselling predecessor and its various expansion titles. The highly anticipated simulation genre title showcases Maxis Studios’ excellent attention to detail & innovative thinking and is sure to be a crowd-pleaser for anyone from the common casual gamer to the hardcore player. The game’s wonderfully smooth and sleek graphics, solid and addictive gameplay, and outstanding in-depth customizable features are what really make this title standout in the simulation genre.
Upon starting the game and creating your own controllable character referred to as a “sim”, you won’t be able to help but admire the comprehensive and in-depth sim creation system along with the brilliant textures of the game overall. Virtually all features of a sim can be resized, altered, and rotated by the player (such as the nose, jaw line, and eye shape) to near ridiculous proportions and a wide variety of premade faces and facial features are available for the “creatively retarded”. A wide variety of clothing is also available to dress up your newly created character. When creating a sim, the player can make a single sim, a family of Sims, or sim roommates. Two sims of the opposite sex can even mix genes and create kids with the mixed physical features of their parents! Now tell me that’s not cool! The game begins when the newly made characters are placed on either one of many premade lots (homes) or one made straight from scratch, and selecting to play that lot or selecting any of the other lots that house premade sims. For a game this detailed and complex, the user interface is surprisingly easy to understand and use. Plenty of helpful tips are given upon first starting a lot. There’s even a tutorial mode to help newcomers of the franchise get their feet wet. When you get the hang of the game, it’s surprisingly difficult to stop! Sort of like crack, except without all the unpleasant side effects……………..like death. It really is amazing how addictive the gameplay is when all you’re doing is basically living a virtual life!
The main objective in the game is to guide your controllable sim(s) to a life full of happiness, prosperity, and friends but because of the open-ended gameplay, the real goal of the game is entirely up to the player. For example, you could start from scratch with a new sim in a small and affordable home, get a job and make your way up the corporate ladder, build a family, create a dream house and grow old, and continue the blood line through your children. Or! You could create a controllable sim, buy and drink from the life rejuvenating fountain, reverse the aging process, and live theoretically forever as a wealthy bachelor swinger! There really is no one way to play this game which is what adds so much playability and depth to the gameplay. However, time rationing is an important skill to learn in this game as you will need it to keep your sims in a good mood to do vital things such as making friends and getting promoted in order to live a successful and thriving lifestyle. Factors such as hygiene, hunger, and energy must be kept up in order for a sim to stay happy and in a good mood. If neglected, the playable sim risks death……………. Which is kind of a neat thing to see because death (the grim reaper) actually appears before the dead sim’s ghost and is able to be interacted with to buy back that sim’s life or have a living sim convince death not to take that sim’s soul to the afterlife.
I was simply blown away by how much time I put into the game. Hours flew by as I immersed myself in my own little fabricated fantasy life…………Gee………What the hell does that say about my life? Back on topic, one of the best features of the game is its many customizable elements such as music and clothing. Players can place their own mp3 format tunes into the various stations of the in-game sim radio and play their very own music through the audio devices such as stereo systems that can be purchased in the buy menu. The game also comes with a special program that allows players to customize and create their own unique clothing lines, skin tones, eye colors, etc. for their sims to use in the game! The possibilities are pretty much endless. Aging, memory formation, and offspring creation are other great features of the game. Playable sims have the ability to age a number of life stages including infant, child, teen, adult, and finally elder and a simple meter indicates how far along a sim is in his/her current life stage. Sims can also form memories of major events over their lifespan such as a first kiss. What else is neat about memory is that the sims will sometimes dream or talk about past experiences with other sims. The offspring creation system occurs when two sims of the opposite sex “try for baby” and usually produces a baby which grows with a well balanced combination of physical features from its biological parents. However, there’s always the chance of producing a freakish looking monstrosity of a child………in which the player could even call social services to take it away! Ah, just joking with you…..well……not really.
There is very little not to like about The Sims 2, but there are a quite few graphical bugs and gameplay issues that keep the game just shy of excellence and need to be taken care of with a patch. A few bugs include doors that never close, babies that turn out super mega ugly, and a sim being unable to go up stairs if another sim is using them. Another downside to the game is the size cap on the scale size of a home on a lot. A player cannot build more than four floors, no matter how large the lot. Also, on occasion, the sim AI will malfunction and make sims do some strange things…….such as restricting themselves to a room and remaining their until they starve to death, stewing in their filth and fecal matter.
In conclusion, The Sims 2 is a fantastic, well rounded title with much to offer to both fans of the series and newcomers alike. The game boasts terrific cutting edge graphics and mechanics along with addictively entertaining and deep gameplay. This is truly a title that gaming audiences of all kinds can appreciate and enjoy, if not for the gameplay, then for the superb attention to detail. I recommend this title to all simulation fanatics and to anyone who loves insanely detailed amounts of complex customization.
The Good: Great graphics/ Terrific gameplay depth/ Superb customization/ very user friendly/ easy to use interface/
The Bad: Some minor graphical bugs/ some gameplay issues that negatively affect gameplay/ occasional retarded looking babies
FINAL SCORE: 9.0 out of 10